1. family and parenting
2. children

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Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention: Outcomes
for Children With Autism and Their Parents After
Two Years
Bob Remington
University of Southampton, UK
Richard P. Hastings
University of Wales, Bangor, UK
Hanna Kovshoff and Francesca degli Espinosa
University of Southampton, UK
Erik Jahr
Akershus University Hospital, Norway
Tony Brown, Paula Alsford, Monika Lemaic, and Nicholas Ward
University of Southampton, UK
Abstract
An intervention group (n ⫽ 23) of preschool children with autism was identified on the
basis of parent preference for early intensive behavioral intervention and a comparison
group (n ⫽ 21) identified as receiving treatment as usual. Prospective assessment was undertaken before treatment, after 1 year of treatment, and again after 2 years. Groups did
not differ on assessments at baseline but after 2 years, robust differences favoring intensive
behavioral intervention were observed on measures of intelligence, language, daily living
skills, positive social behavior, and a statistical measure of best outcome for individual
children. Measures of parental well-being, obtained at the same three time points, produced
no evidence that behavioral intervention created increased problems for either mothers or
fathers of children receiving it.
An increasing body of empirical research suggests that early, intensive, structured intervention,
based on the principles of applied behavior analysis, is effective in remediating the intellectual,
linguistic, and adaptive deficits associated with autism. Lovaas’s (1987) original archival study
showed that a group of children receiving 40
weekly hours of home-based early intensive behavioral intervention achieved significant gains in
IQ and social functioning in comparison with
control groups receiving either a less intensive intervention or the standard treatment offered by
educational services. McEachin, Smith, and Lo418
vaas’s (1993) follow-up study showed that the
gains were maintained at age 11.5 years and that
8 of 9 children, previously identified as having
achieved ‘‘best outcome’’ status could not be distinguished from typically developing peers by assessors blind to their treatment.
Since 1987, many researchers have conducted
evaluation studies attesting to the effectiveness of
early intervention with autism, but most have suffered from methodological limitations that threatened their internal validity. For example, in common with Lovaas (1987), several subsequent studies were not truly prospective randomized control
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trials because the researchers were unable to assign
children to groups randomly (e.g., Anderson, Avery, DiPietro, Edwards, & Christian, 1987; Birnbrauer & Leach, 1993; Eikeseth, Smith, Jahr, &
Eldevik, 2002) or used archival data to form a
comparison group (Sheinkopf & Siegel, 1998).
Others still relied on simple pre–post group comparisons (e.g., Stahmer & Ingersoll, 2004; Weiss,
1999) or controlled single-case studies (e.g.,
Green, Brennan, & Fein, 2002).
In summary, there are few randomized control trials that meet adequate internal validity criteria and demonstrate the efficacy of early intensive behavioral intervention. Two exceptional
studies (Sallows & Graupner, 2005; Smith, Groen,
& Wynn; 2000) compared the effects of early intervention implemented using either a clinic- or a
parent-directed model. Smith et al. (2000) showed
that clinic-based intervention lasting 25 hours per
week for 2 to 3 years had greater impact than a
less intensive parent training-based intervention (5
hours per week). Group measures of children’s intelligence, visual–spatial skills, and language did
not differ at age 3 years, but changes in favor of
the clinic-directed group were apparent at age 7
to 8 years. In contrast, Sallows and Graupner
(2005) found no differences between clinic- and
parent-directed programs on similar measures after
4 years of treatment. In this study, however, between-group differences in the intensity of intervention were much less marked.
The paucity of randomized control trials in
this area reflects the considerable difficulties of
staging them: Unlike drug trials, where patients
are, in principle, blind to the intervention, parents
are made well-aware in advance of the treatment
their children will receive. Moreover, as knowledge accumulates and early intervention is accepted as a treatment of choice for autism (e.g.,
Surgeon-General, 1999), researchers face ethical
difficulties with random assignment, and families
become less willing to commit their children to
long-lasting treatments of dubious utility. Thus,
although a randomized controlled trial approach
can, under idealized conditions, produce the
strongest evidence establishing the efficacy of an
intervention (see, e.g., Whitehurst, 2003), it may
be difficult to conduct further evaluative trials of
early intensive behavioral intervention unless wellmatched, equally credible alternatives can be
pitted against standard procedures.
In any case, it is likely that the effectiveness
in practice of early intensive behavioral interven-
tion would be overestimated by any putative randomized trial. In general, the external validity of
such trials is compromised by tight control of variables, including co-morbidity, treatment fidelity,
treatment adherence, and self-selection into and
out of trials (Kendall, Chu, Gifford, Hayes, &
Nauta, 1998; Persons & Silberschatz, 1998; Seligman, 1995). Absence of control of such factors is
commonplace in typical service settings so the
long-term clinical benefit of any intervention depends on its remaining effective in conditions that
are less than optimal. Considerations of this kind
have given rise to field effectiveness research, in
which random assignment to groups and the most
rigorous experimental control are traded against a
more naturalistic evaluation of service delivery in
context. Two recent evaluations of early behavioral intervention for autism (H. Cohen, AmerineDickens, & Smith, 2006; Howard, Sparkman, Cohen, Green, & Stanislaw, 2005) have adopted this
approach.
Using the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders (DSM-IV ) (American Psychiatric
Association, 1994) criteria rather than the ‘‘gold
standard’’ research tool, namely, the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (Lord, Rutter, & Le
Couteur, 1994), Howard et al. (2005) identified 61
children who met criterion either for autistic disorder or for pervasive developmental disorder–not
otherwise specified (PDD-NOS). They compared
29 children who received intensive clinic-directed
behavior analytic intervention (25 to 40 hours per
week) with two comparison groups, one (n ⫽ 16)
that received equally intensive eclectic intervention and the other (n ⫽ 16) whose members were
not enrolled in any intensive public intervention
programs. Assignment to groups was not randomized but depended on the advice of practitioners,
with ‘‘parental preferences weighted heavily’’
(Lord et al., 1994, p. 364). Unusually, Howard et
al. eschewed direct group comparison using ANOVA models, opting instead for a multiple regression-based analysis, with group membership
treated as a categorical variable. This showed that
prior to treatment there were no differences between the behavior analytic intervention group
and the two comparison groups combined.
In a second analysis of functioning 14
months later, Howard et al. (2005) found that
children in the intensive behavior analytic intervention group had higher scores than those in the
combined comparison groups on standardized
tests of cognitive, linguistic, and adaptive func-
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tioning. Although the effects implied by these
analyses were confirmed in a similar test of the
absolute change scores on all measures, no analysis taking into account conditional change (i.e.,
relative to baseline scores) was presented.
In a 3-year prospective outcome study carried
out in a community setting, Cohen et al. (2006)
compared 21 children receiving early intensive behavioral treatment with an equal number of children participating in public school special education classes. Random assignment to groups was
not attempted; instead, assignment was based on
parental preference and a file review process used
to identify an IQ- and CA-matched child for each
child receiving intensive intervention. In this way,
it was possible to form a group of children ‘‘who
met participation criteria . . . and whose parents
chose other services’’ (p. S147). Both groups included some children with a diagnosis of autism
and others with a PDD-NOS diagnosis, but the
proportion of the latter was lower in the intervention group. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA),
using baseline scores as the covariates, and comparing performance after 1, 2, and 3 years revealed
that the intensive group was superior on measures
of IQ and adaptive behavior, but not on measures
of language or nonverbal skills. Moreover, the absence of a Group ⫻ Time interaction indicated
that between-group performance differences
achieved after 12 months did not increase
throughout the treatment. The number of children scoring in the normal range on the primary
outcome measure (IQ) was higher in the intensive
intervention group after 3 years, but this difference was not statistically significant.
Results of the Howard et al. (2005) and H.
Cohen et al. (2006) studies suggest that early intensive behavioral intervention can be effective
when delivered in more typical community settings and when compared with treatment as usual
the typical mix of interventions available to children with autism. However, in common with almost all research in this area, these researchers did
not consider two crucial questions that we sought
to address in the present research. First, does early
intensive behavioral intervention have an impact
beyond the cognitive, language, and adaptive behavior deficits associated with autism, additionally
affecting the characteristic diagnostic symptoms
of the disorder? In the present study, we included
rating scale measures of autistic presentation, behavior problems, and prosocial behavior, as well
as an observational measure of joint attention
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(Mundy & Crowson, 1997). The second issue we
addressed concerns the impact of intensive intervention on family members. This has been explored only minimally, and although existing data
suggest that the mothers and siblings of participating children are not adversely affected (Birnbrauer & Leach, 1993; Hastings, 2003a; Hastings
& Johnson, 2001; Smith, Buch, & Gamby, 2000;
Smith, Groen, & Wynn, 2000), there is as yet no
published controlled study of a range of measures
of both maternal and paternal well-being.
We also explored a key methodological issue
relating to intervention effectiveness by adopting
a more precise approach to identifying ‘‘best outcome’’ children based on Jacobson and Truax’s
(1991) objective criteria for establishing whether a
particular child has benefited meaningfully from
an intervention. These criteria are (a) reliable change
(the extent to which statistical factors can be ruled
out as an explanation for apparent change) and
(b) clinically significant change (the extent to which
change is also clinically meaningful). Although in
earlier research investigators have used a criterion
of IQs moving to within the normal range (Birnbrauer & Leach, 1993; Eikeseth et al., 2002; Lovaas, 1987; McEachin et al., 1993; Sallows &
Graupner, 2005; Smith et al., 2000), to the best
of our knowledge this is the first study simultaneously to apply statistical criteria for both reliable and clinical change to the outcomes for early
intensive behavioral intervention programs.
We explored these three key issues within the
United Kingdom educational system, where in
previously published research, based on an uncontrolled survey of the impact of home programs, Bibby, Eikeseth, Martin, Mudford, and
Reeves (2001) reported only minimal outcomes
and wide variations in the quality and intensity of
service delivery. In contrast, we sought to construct the most rigorously controlled field effectiveness study achievable within the constraints of
the prevailing culture. This involved a prospective
2-year longitudinal design, comparing children
with autism whose families had chosen intensive
behavioral intervention from a range of different
service providers in England with children whose
parents were not seeking this type of intervention
and were receiving typical statutory services (treatment as usual).
In summary, we designed this study as a rigorous test of whether early intensive behavioral
intervention for children with autism can be beneficial in routine use, incorporating a wide range
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of outcome measures for both children with autism and their parents. We used objective criteria
to identify children achieving ‘‘best outcome.’’
Following previous effectiveness studies, we expected intervention to lead to improvements in
children’s cognitive, language, and social functioning when compared with treatment as usual.
Existing family research suggests that parents’ psychological well-being would not be adversely affected by engagement with intensive intervention,
although it was unclear whether positive outcomes could be expected. Given the lack of published data, we had no expectations as to whether
there would be positive changes in ratings of autistic symptoms, behavior problems, or measures
of joint attention behaviors following early intensive behavioral intervention.
Method
Design Overview
Two groups of preschool children with a formal diagnosis of autism were identified. Parents of
children in the intervention group had opted for
early intensive behavioral intervention, either provided from public funds or purchased privately;
parents of children in the comparison group were
not actively seeking behavioral intervention, and
instead were receiving publicly funded standard
provision offered by their Local Education Authority (i.e., treatment as usual). Assessments of
the children’s cognitive functioning, adaptive behavior, autistic behaviors, and social and communicative skills were undertaken at three datacollection points: prior to intervention (baseline);
after 1 year, and again after 2 years of intervention
(12- and 24-month assessments). Measures of parental mental health, stress, and positive perceptions of their child were obtained at the same time
points.
Participants
Children with autism. Children were recruited
through referrals from local education authorities,
through advertisements placed with the United
Kingdom National Autistic Society, its regional
branches, and through parent groups or charities.
Demographic data relating to families appear in
Table 1 and to children, in Table 2 (for baseline
information, see Results). To meet the inclusion
requirements for this study, all children in both
the intervention and comparison groups had to
meet the following criteria. First, we required a
diagnosis of autism based on the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised carried out by an assessor
(the last author), who was fully trained to administer and score this instrument for research purposes. All children had also either previously been
diagnosed with autism by a clinician independent
of the research program or had a suspected diagnosis of autism. Second, children were required to
be between 30 and 42 months of age at time of
their induction. Third, they were required to be
free of any other chronic or serious medical condition that might interfere with the ability to deliver consistent intervention or might otherwise
adversely affect development. Finally, all the children lived in the family home.
We identified 44 children who met these criteria. The families of 23 of them, constituting the
intervention group, had opted for early intensive
behavioral intervention, either receiving provision
from the University of Southampton and funded
through their local education service (n ⫽ 13) or
through a private service provider (n ⫽ 10). In the
latter cases, services were either paid for by the
parents themselves or by their local education service. The remaining 21 families, the comparison
group, were receiving various forms of publicly
funded educational provision for their children.
The groups differed slightly on chronological age
(CA), with the comparison group children (M ⫽
38.4 months, SD ⫽ 4.4) being on average approximately 3 months older than the children in the
intervention group (M ⫽ 35.7 months, SD ⫽ 4.0),
t(42) ⫽ 2.14, p ⬍ .05. None of the other demographic variables assessed for the children differed
between the two groups at baseline assessment.
Chronological age was explored as a control variable in the main statistical analyses.
Parents. Forty-four mothers and 31 fathers of
children in the intervention and comparison
groups provided data on some aspects of the
child’s functioning and on their own well-being.
Their demographic details are shown in Table 1.
In the sample as a whole, there were 40 couples
at the baseline assessment. Nine families had a
father at home who declined to participate
throughout the research. For 4 families, the father
was not living in the same home as the mother
and the child with autism at baseline; these fathers
did not participate throughout the research. The
two groups were very similar on the majority of
parent/family demographic characteristics. Although some demographic differences appear to
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Table 1. Demographic Characteristics of Families by Group
Intervention (n ⫽ 23)
n/
Mean
Demographic
%/SD
Range
Comparison (n ⫽ 21)
n/
Mean
%/SD
Range
Families
Marital status
Married
Living with partner
Divorced/Separated/Single and
not living with partner
16
4
3
69.6
17.4
13
16
4
76.2
19
1
4.8
Siblings
0
1
2
3
5
11
7
0
21.7
47.8
30.4
0
3
13
4
1
14.3
61.9
19
4.8
Siblings with developmental disabilities
0
1
2
20
2
0
87
13
0
13
7
1
61.9
33.3
4.8
All mothers (n ⫽ 44)
Mean age
23
35.7
Level of education
No university education
University education
Paid work
Full-time
Part-time
13
10
7
0
7
All fathers living in the family home (n ⫽ 40)
Mean age
Level of education
No university education
University education
Paid work
Full-time
Part-time
Fathers who responded to questionnaires (n ⫽ 31)
Mean age
Level of education
No university education
University education
Paid work
Full-time
Part-time
20
38.8
4.0
26–42
57
43
30.4
0
100
5.5
10
10
19
19
0
16
38.7
50
50
95
100
0
7
9
15
15
0
44
56
93.8
100
0
4.8
21
33.6
17
4
7
0
7
3.8
26–41
81
19
33.3
0
100
31–50
20
37.1
55
45
90
94.4
5.6
31–50
11
9
18
17
1
15
37.5
8
7
13
12
1
53
47
86.7
92.3
7.7
4.8
5.4
30–53
30–53
Note. All mothers responded to the questionnaires but only 31 fathers responded similarly. Data for both subsamples
appear in the table.
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Table 2. Unadjusted Means (SDs) of Child Measures by Group and Assessment Point
Baseline
Measure
Intervention Comparison
12-month assessment
Intervention
24-month assessment
Comparison
Intervention
Comparison
IQ**
61.43 (16.43) 62.33 (16.64) 68.78 (20.49) 58.90 (20.45)
MAa**
22.04 (6.89) 23.71 (6.00) 33.70 (10.16) 29.81 (9.89)
VABSb
Composite
114.78 (26.89) 113.57 (29.78) 169.70 (49.07) 145.76 (45.56)
Communication
23.52 (11.35) 21.62 (10.81) 42.83 (18.25) 34.62 (17.17)
Daily Living* 24.13 (7.49) 25.43 (10.56) 39.52 (14.71) 35.52 (14.34)
Socialization
29.57 (6.65) 28.29 (7.48) 38.52 (12.57) 33.14 (11.77)
Motor Skills* 37.57 (6.37) 38.24 (7.06) 48.83 (6.84) 44.48 (7.70)
73.48 (27.28)
44.39 (16.39)
60.14 (27.76)
38.00 (17.44)
202.83 (61.98) 182.86 (58.89)
54.74 (24.43)
50.22 (16.46)
43.52 (15.94)
54.35 (9.12)
46.00 (24.51)
44.67 (16.99)
41.48 (14.52)
50.71 (8.21)
11.76 (9.41)
11.29 (3.47)
11.19 (13.86)
10.06 (4.99)
Joint attentionc
Initiating
Responding*
3.33 (4.40)
5.29 (3.62)
3.63 (4.92)
5.94 (3.91)
7.71 (7.52)
8.95 (4.18)
6.19 (8.79)
7.13 (5.21)
Mental age. bVineland Adaptive Behavior Scales Raw Scores. cMeasured using the Early Social Communication Scales.
*p ⬍ .05. **p ⬍ .01 on main effects for combined 12- and 24-month data. Intervention group n ⫽ 23 and comparison
group n ⫽ 21, except for joint attention, intervention group n ⫽ 21; comparison group n ⫽ 16.
a
be present, no differences between the groups
were large enough to reach statistical significance
at the .05 level. Thus, none of these characteristics
were considered as candidate control variables in
the following analyses.
Child Measures
We used norm-referenced instruments to
gather the cognitive, language, and behavioral
outcome data for the children. The assessments
were chosen for their good psychometric properties and use in published outcome studies with
similar populations. An important consideration
was their potential utility for testing children with
autism. Many tests require language skills and sustained attention, two abilities that may also be
affected in such children, whose symptomatic deficits in language, intellectual, neurological, adaptive behavior, and interpersonal skills could influence performance on standardized measures and
thus impact on the reliability and validity of any
test. All tests were administered according to the
standard procedures to ensure our data were comparable with those from other studies. Although
in some cases this could potentially have led to
an underestimate of children’s ability (e.g., children reaching a ceiling on the Bayley Scales may
have continued to score on the nonverbal, nonsocial items had these been administered), scoring
methods did not differentially favor either group.
The tests selected were administered by a master’s level trained psychometrician (the third author), who had over 4 years of experience with
children who have autism and who exercised every caution to obtain reliable and valid data. Although resources did not allow for formal independent reliability checks when assessments by independent psychometricians were available, these
scores were always within a standard error of measurement of those reported below. Moreover, the
third author was not informed of group status,
worked independently of intervention teams, had
no access to intervention reports, and her contact
with the family was limited to the annual assessments.
Intellectual functioning. The Bayley Scales and
the Stanford Binet Intelligence Scale: Fourth Edition (Thorndike, Hagen, & Sattler, 1986) were
both chosen, in part, for their low floor. The Bayley, designed for children up to 42 months of age,
is appropriate for children with intellectual disabilities or those whose language skills are not sufficiently advanced to take a full-scale intelligence
test. If children received the Bayley scales at a CA
that exceeded the norms of the test, a mental age
(MA) was calculated based on their raw score using Table B.2 in the Bayley manual. A ratio IQ
was then computed based on the MA/CA ⫻ 100
formula. The Stanford-Binet provides normative
data from the age of 2 years and, with only one
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timed subtest, provides a good deal of flexibility
when assessing children with autism.
Language. The Reynell Developmental Language Scales–Third Edition (Edwards et al., 1997)
was chosen primarily because it is one of the few
language assessments previously used in early intensive behavioral intervention outcome studies
and provides separate measures of expressive language and comprehension. However, the updated
United Kingdom normed version used provides
normative data only from 21 months of age, significantly older than the norms in the 1985 version, which begin at 12 months.
Adaptive skills. The Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale–Survey Form (Sparrow, Balla, & Cicchetti, 1984) was chosen based on its prolific use
and the fact that it could be administered in a
short version (the survey form). The Vineland assesses adaptive behavior across four domains: Socialization, Communication, Daily Living Skills,
and Motor Skills. Unfortunately, improvements
in the adaptive behavior of children with autism
are not always reflected in Vineland standardized
scores. This is in part because higher functioning
children show uneven developmental profiles
with interdomain scatter (Burack & Volkmar,
1992) and in part because low-functioning children may show little scatter, owing to basal effects
(Carter et al., 1998). To avoid such problems in
research (as opposed to diagnostic) applications
with children who have autism, Carter et al.
(1998) recommended that raw scores be used in
preference to standardized scores.
Rating scales for child behavior. The Positive Social subscale of the Nisonger Child Behavior Rating Form (Tassé, Aman, Hammer, & Rojahn,
1996) and the parent report version of the Developmental Behavior Checklist (Einfeld & Tonge,
1995) were chosen to assess child behavior. The
Nisonger is an informant behavior rating scale designed to assess children with intellectual disabilities. The Developmental Behavior Checklist is a
behavior rating questionnaire yielding a Total Behavior Score, indexing the severity of behavior
problems and offering a subset of items that function as a reliable and valid autism screening tool
(the Developmental Behavior Checklist-Autism
Screening Algorithm, Einfeld & Tonge, 2002).
The Autism Screening Questionnaire (Berument,
Rutter, Lord, Pickles, & Bailey, 1999) was also
used. Derived from the Autism Diagnostic Interview algorithm (Lord et al., 1994) and completed
by parents, this instrument provides a dimension424
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al score for the symptoms of autism that was used
in the analyses.
Observational measures of nonverbal social communication. The Early Social Communication
Scales (Mundy, Hogan, & Dohering, 1996) is a
videotaped semi-structured observational instrument in which the tester presents a standard set
of toys in ways designed to elicit social and communicative behaviors in an ecologically valid context. The key variables obtained through administration of the scales were measures of initiating
and responding to joint attention. Initiating joint
attention refers to the frequency with which children use eye contact, pointing, and showing to
share the experience of a toy or object during testing. Responding to joint attention refers to the number of times, over eight trials, in which a child
correctly turned his or her eye gaze and aligned
attention in the direction of the tester’s distal
point to a poster. Children with autism are less
likely than typically developing children, or children with intellectual disabilities, to initiate or respond to joint attention (McEvoy, Rogers, & Pennington, 1993; Mundy & Crowson, 1997; Mundy, Sigman, Ungerer, & Sherman, 1986). Therefore, in the present study we assessed whether
these social interaction behaviors would improve
differentially for the intervention group as a result
of participating in a program requiring many
hours of one-to-one interaction with adults.
Interrater reliability was assessed using videotaped data from 25% of children (9) at each time
point, scored by an independent rater blind to
group status and trained to reliability level on Early Social Communication Scale training videotapes. Intraclass correlations between the paired
ratings, used to assess consistency between raters’
codes at all three assessment points, ranged from
.95 to .99 for initiating joint attention and .96 to
.97 for responding to joint attention.
Self-Report Measures of Parental Well-Being
The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale
(Zigmond & Snaith, 1983), chosen as a measure
of parents’ mental health, includes two subscales,
one assessing depression and the other, anxiety.
Previous research with parents of children with autism has shown that the measure maintains good
reliability (internal consistency) for both mothers
and fathers of children with autism (Hastings,
2003b; Hastings & Brown, 2002). The Parent and
Family Problems subscale of the Questionnaire on
Resources and Stress–Friedrich short form (Fried-
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rich, Greenberg, & Crnic, 1983) was chosen as a
general measure of parental stress. This scale
yields a total stress score after five items previously
shown to constitute a robust measure of depression in parents of children with disabilities (Glidden & Floyd, 1997) have been removed from the
scale. This modification ensured that there was no
overlap between the measures of stress and of
mental health. The resulting 15-item scale had
strong internal consistency in the present sample
(Kuder-Richardson coefficients were .87 for mothers and .83 for fathers at baseline). The Kansas
Inventory of Parental Perceptions Positive Contributions subscale (Behr, Murphy, & Summers,
1992) was chosen as a measure of the degree to
which parents hold positive perceptions of their
child and the child’s impact on the family (e.g.,
bringing the family closer together, helping other
family members to become more understanding
of other people, and being a source of happiness
and fulfillment). In the present research, we used
the total positive perceptions score. This score had
a high level of internal consistency for both mothers, Cronbach’s ␣ ⫽ .95, and fathers, ␣ ⫽ .95.
Procedure
Intervention group. All children in the intervention group received home-based early intensive
behavioral intervention for 2 years. Trained tutors
and parents delivered one-to-one teaching based
on applied behavior analysis for 25.6 hrs per week
on average (SD ⫽ 4.8, range ⫽ 18.4 to 34.0). Thirteen of the 21 programs were provided by the
University of Southampton and were free at the
point of use for the parents nominated by the
local education authority that funded the University intervention team (which included the fourth,
fifth, seventh, and eighth authors). The remaining
programs were delivered by other United Kingdom service providers, either funded directly by
the parents or purchased for the parents by their
Local Education Authority. These included
PEACH, a parent charity (n ⫽ 4), London Early
Autism Program (n ⫽ 1), United Kingdom–Young
Autism Progamme (n ⫽ 1), and East Sussex Local
Education Authority (n ⫽ 1). The remaining child
spent 9 months with PEACH, 9 months with a
private consultant, and the final 6 months at a
school where applied behavior analysis was regularly employed (he was the only child to attend
such a school).
Although interventions were delivered by a
range of service providers, they had in common
the 10 features characterizing research-based interventions identified by Green et al. (2002, p. 70).
Treatment began in the home during the children’s 3rd or 4th year and continued for 2 years.
It involved 20 to 30 hrs a week of structured
teaching, based on the principles of applied behavior analysis. Thus, programs used discrete trial
training methods (Lovaas, 1993) and incorporated
generalization procedures to extend and maintain
emerging behavioral repertoires. Elements of natural environment training (Sundberg & Partington, 1999) and verbal behavior (Partington &
Sundberg, 1998) were also integrated into the majority of the interventions.
In some cases, recognized alternative and augmentative communication systems based on behavioral principles were incorporated into interventions to address absence of speech and provide
children with an initial means of communication.
At 12 months, 44% (10) of the children in the
intervention group were using the Picture Exchange Communication System and 17% (4) continued to do so at 24 months. For sign language
or Makaton Communication Systems, the figures
were 44% (10) at 12 months and 35% (8) at 24
months, respectively.
Intervention programs covering all aspects of
functioning (e.g., language, other cognitive, social,
motoric) were individualized for each child, based
on ongoing analysis of current strengths and
needs, taking into consideration typical developmental trajectory and practicability. Programs
were thus progressive: When simpler skills were
acquired, more complex skills were established as
behavioral objectives, and this process continued
throughout the 2 years of intervention. Similarly,
as children’s skills increased, the process of facilitating access to appropriate school settings was
initiated.
The program was delivered to each child by
a team of 3 to 5 therapists trained in the use of
behavior analytic procedures (e.g., shaping, chaining, prompting, fading, modeling, discrimination
learning, task analysis, functional analysis) and supervised by more experienced staff members, including a supervisor who had substantial experience with early intensive behavioral intervention
and, in the majority of cases, a consultant with
still greater experience to PhD level and/or a track
record of research publication in behavior analysis. Parents also delivered therapy, which was supervised in the same way.
Supervision of each tutor team was accom-
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plished using a workshop model in which supervisors arranged extended team meetings at regular
intervals. The frequency of team meetings depended on the service provider; for the 13 children receiving University of Southampton supervised intervention, meetings were twice a month,
with additional regular training overlaps; for the
remaining children, meetings were less frequent
(range ⫽ 4 to 12 weeks). During meetings, the
child’s progress since the previous meeting was assessed, programs were added or modified, and
members of the team (including the parents) practiced the programs to be implemented next. Consultants attended meetings on a less frequent basis
(on average, once every 2 months), but they were
available by telephone or email to provide additional clinical supervision. Between meetings, supervisors were similarly available to the team and
parents.
No child in the intervention group was attending school at the baseline assessment, but by
the 12-month assessment, 13 (57%) attended a
mainstream school for an average of 5.8 hrs per
week. At the 24-month assessment, 17 children
(74%) attended mainstream school for an average
of 13.28 hrs per week; and 22% (5), a special
needs school for an average of 9.15 hrs per week.
The remaining child continued with only the
home-based program. Because most children in
the intervention group were simultaneously attending school and receiving home programs,
school hours were somewhat lower than those for
the comparison group children at the first and second year of the study. Treatment and Education
of Autistic and Related Communication Handicapped Children TEACCH principles (Schopler,
Mesibov, & Baker, 1982) were sometimes incorporated into school provision of 2 children (9%)
receiving this intervention at the 12-month assessment and 13% (3) at the 24-month assessment).
Apart from behavioral treatment and schooling, some children in the intervention group also
received other interventions: 65% (15) were receiving speech therapy at the baseline assessment;
22% (5), at the 12-month assessment; and 26%
(6), after 24 months. Dietary interventions (typically gluten and casein restriction) were also commonly reported, with 11 children (48%) on restricted diets at baseline, and 14 (61%) and 12
(52%) at the 12 and 24 months, respectively. Finally, parents also reported the use of routine prescription medication: 4% (1) at baseline, 17% (4)
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at the 12-month assessment, and 4% (1) at 24
months. Vitamin injections or high doses of vitamins were given to 6 children (26%); 10, 44%;
and 7, 30%, respectively, at baseline, 12-, and 24month assessment; and homeopathic interventions, 5 children (22%) at baseline; 2 (9%) at 12
months; and 1, 4% at 24 months.
Comparison group. The children in the comparison group received their local education authorities’ standard provision for young children
with autism. Thus, over the course of 2 years, they
experienced a variety of interventions designed to
ameliorate the impact of autism and enhance
functioning, none of which were intensive or delivered on a one-to-one basis for the majority of
time. The most frequently reported intervention
was speech therapy: 12 of the children (57%) received it at the time of the baseline assessment,
67% (14) at the 12-month assessment, and 48%
(10) at the 24-month assessment. As part of the
children’s experience of school, parents reported
frequent use of TEACCH principles (38%, 8 children, and 52%, 11 children at 12 months and 24
months, respectively). Similarly, the Picture Exchange Communication System was frequently
employed:(67%, 14 children and 76%, 16 children, respectively, at 12 and 24 months) and sign
language or Makaton communication systems
(24%, n ⫽ 5 and 48%, n ⫽ 10, at 12 and 24
months) were used as alternative communication
systems. Dietary interventions were also relatively
common, with 14% (n ⫽ 3) on special diets at
baseline, 19% (n ⫽ 4) at their 12-month assessment, and 29% (n ⫽ 6 children) at the 24-month
assessment. Prescription medication, vitamin, and
homeopathic use were also reported: 5% (1 child)
received prescription medication at baseline, 24%
(5) at 12 months, and 19% (4) at 24 months. Vitamin injections or high doses of vitamins were
not used with any of the children at baseline, and
only 1 child (5%) at the 12- and 24-month assessments. Finally, homeopathic interventions were
reported for 24% (5) of the sample at baseline,
and for only 1 child (5%) at the 12- and 24-month
assessments.
No child in the comparison group was attending school at baseline assessment. By the time
of their 12- and 24-month assessments, however,
in line with their education authorities’ standard
provision, all had a school placement. At the 12month assessment, 48% (6) were in a mainstream
environment; 43% (9), in a special educational
needs school, and 10% (2), a mixed placement in
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which half their time was spent in each kind of
school. The average number of hours per week
spent at school was similar for each child no matter where they were placed (an average of 15.3 hrs
spent in mainstream, 17 hrs spent in special
needs, and 15 hrs spent in mixed placements). By
their 24-month assessment, 48% (10 children)
were in mainstream schools for a weekly average
of 22.3 hrs and 52% were in special needs schools
for 13.6 hrs per week.
Although intervention and comparison group
children received similar levels of speech and language interventions at baseline, it is clear that this
pattern was not sustained throughout the 24month period. Typically, as reported below, this
was because the intervention produced effects that
reduced the need for other interventions such as
sign language or Makaton.
Psychometric assessments. Outcome measures
for children and parents were obtained at baseline,
after 1 year of behavioral intervention or standard
provision (12-month assessment), and after 2 years
(24-month assessment). Performance-based tests
were administered in a distraction-free environment at the family home. All questionnaires were
mailed out to parents at the time of each of the
three assessments and returned to research staff
shortly afterwards. Telephone interviews using the
Vineland were conducted with primary caregivers
approximately 1 week prior to the children’s assessment visits, which took place at the family
home. These lasted approximately 60 min. Except
for the Autism Diagnostic Interview, which the
final author administered to parents in the home
at the time of the baseline assessment, the third
author administered all the standardized outcome
measures using a uniform order of administration:
(a) the Early Social Communication Scales, (b)
the Bayley Scales of Infant Development or the
Stanford Binet, and (c) The Reynell Developmental Language Scales (which was administered only
if a child’s language level was such that they could
access the items on the test).
Results
Overview of Analysis of Group Data
To evaluate the effectiveness of behavioral intervention, we used ANCOVA models. Because
the groups were not actively matched at baseline,
baseline scores on outcome measures were entered
as a covariate into analyses that, therefore, consisted of one between-groups factor: Group (in-
tervention, comparison) and one repeated measures factor, Time (outcomes at 12 months vs. 24
months). In these models, a significant main effect of group would suggest larger changes in one
group seen at both 12 and 24 months. A significant Group ⫻ Time interaction would likely indicate that there were no significant betweengroup differences at one time point, but significant between-group differences at the other time
point. Finding no main effects or interaction effects would suggest that the two groups did not
differ after either 12 and 24 months.
For ease of comparison with other research
and to facilitate later meta-analytic comparisons,
unadjusted mean scores for outcome variables at
baseline and at 12- and 24-month assessments are
displayed in Tables 2 and 4 (children) and Table
5 (parents).
Child outcome. Table 2 displays the results for
IQ, MA, raw scores on the Vineland subdomains,
and the Early Social Communication Scale measures of Initiating and Responding to Joint Attention. The 2 ⫻ 2 ANCOVA model, used to analyze outcomes at 12 and 24 months, revealed that
four of these measures showed an advantage at 12
months for the intervention group over the comparison group that was maintained through to the
24-month assessment point. For IQ, there was a
significant main effect of group, F(1, 41) ⫽ 7.72,
p ⫽ .008, but no interaction effect. Similarly, MA
showed a significant main effect of group,
F(1, 41) ⫽ 8.37, p ⫽ .006, but no interaction effect. Significant group effects (but no interactions)
were also found for Vineland Daily Living Skills,
F(1, 41) ⫽ 6.32, p ⫽ .016, and Vineland Motor
Skills, F(1, 41) ⫽ 4.49, p ⫽ .040, but not for the
Vineland Composite score nor the Socialization
and Communication domains. In all cases, children receiving early intensive behavioral intervention were out-performing children in the comparison group.
Seven children (2 in the intervention and 5
in the comparison group) were unable to participate in the baseline Early Social Communication
Scale assessment because of behavioral problems,
inattention, or absence of parental agreement to
videorecording. However, employing MannWhitney tests, we were not able to identify differences at baseline, in terms of CA or outcome
measures, between those children who accessed
the assessment and those who did not. For those
children who did, the 2 ⫻ 2 ANCOVAs for 24month outcomes showed a significant main effect
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of group for responding to joint attention in favor
of the intervention group, F(1, 34) ⫽ 4.15, p ⫽
.049, but no significant effect for initiating joint
attention. Neither measure yielded significant interaction effects again, indicating that the effects
were established by 12 months and maintained to
24 months.
Given that the baseline CAs of the intervention and comparison groups (35.7 and 38.3
months, respectively) differed significantly and
that CA was correlated with IQ, MA, and some
Vineland scores, we ran further ANCOVAs for
these variables, with CA as an additional covariate. Three of four of the group effects described
above similarly remained significant at conventional levels, but the Vineland Motor Skills main
effect achieved only marginal significance, p ⫽
.057.
Unfortunately, when tested, some children
were unable to obtain a score on the Reynell Developmental Language Scales, particularly at baseline, owing to the higher norms produced for the
third edition of the test (Edwards et al., 1997).
Thus, the raw data for this measure were incomplete. Therefore, we evaluated group effects on the
Reynell using a frequency analysis in which the
numbers of children obtaining versus those not
obtaining a score on the Reynell were compared
at the three data-collection points using 2 ⫻ 2 chisquare tests. The group frequencies are shown in
Table 3. These tests revealed no differences between groups at baseline for comprehension, but
significant differences in favor of the intervention
group both at 12 months, ␹2(1, N ⫽ 44) ⫽ 4.13,
p ⫽ .042, and 24 months, ␹2(1, N ⫽ 44) ⫽ 8.39,
p ⫽ .004. Similarly, the groups did not differ at
baseline for expressive language, but significant
differences in favor of the intervention group were
observed both at 12 months, ␹2(1, N ⫽ 44) ⫽
5.02, p ⫽ .025, and 24 months, ␹2(1, N ⫽ 44) ⫽
10.06, p ⫽ .002.
Table 4 shows mothers’ and fathers’ ratings of
their child’s behavior problems, prosocial behaviors, and autistic behavior. Analyses of covariance
at 24 months revealed a significant group effect
for mother-reported positive social behavior,
F(1, 41) ⫽ 9.07, p ⫽ .004, and a marginally significant group effect for fathers on this scale,
F(1, 28) ⫽ 4.09, p ⫽ .053. In both cases, more
positive social behavior was reported for the intervention group. No further significant main effects of group and no interaction effects were
428
Table 3. Frequencies of Children by Group
Achieving a Score on the Reynell Verbal
Comprehension Scale and Expressive Language
Scale at Three Assessment Points
Reynell Verbal
Comprehension Scale
Assessment
time/Group
Verbal
Expressive
comprehension language
Baseline
Intervention
Comparison
4
3
2
1
12-month
Intervention
Comparison
19
11
17
8
24-month
Intervention
Comparison
21
11
21
10
Note. Intervention group n ⫽ 23 and comparison group,
n ⫽ 21.
found for the other parentally reported child variables.
Parental outcome. Table 5 shows scores on maternal and paternal well-being measures across the
2 years of the study. The only significant finding
was a group main effect for paternal depression.
Fathers in the intervention group reported more
symptoms of depression at both 12 and 24
months, as revealed by a significant main effect
in the 2 (group) ⫻ 2 (time) ANCOVA, F(1, 28)
⫽ 5.19, p ⫽ .031.
Analysis of Outcomes for Individual Children
Because IQ has been the primary outcome
variable in previous early intensive behavioral intervention research, and here showed the strongest positive change as a result of intervention, we
used IQ as the focus for analysis of change for
individual children. We first calculated a group
effect size for IQ at 24 months to reinforce the
clinical significance of the overall intervention effect. The estimate of effect size was based on Cohen’s d statistic. Specifically, the mean difference
between the two groups’ IQ change scores after
24 months was used as the numerator and the
pooled SD of the two groups’ IQ change scores
as the denominator using Cohen’s formula (J. Cohen, 1988). The 24-month effect size for IQ calculated using this method was .77, indicating a
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Note. Intervention group mothers (M) n ⫽ 23 and comparison group mothers, n ⫽ 21. Intervention group fathers (F) n ⫽ 16 and comparison group fathers n ⫽ 15.
60.62 (24.72)
55.20 (19.44)
26.76 (11.21)
24.00 (11.60)
11.86 (4.84)
11.20 (5.19)
19.29 (7.22)
19.47 (7.46)
44.70 (24.20)
45.19 (20.94)
18.91 (10.29)
19.50 (8.80)
15.30 (4.69)
12.69 (4.06)
15.96 (5.63)
19.88 (6.16)
57.71 (22.61)
58.02 (21.05)
25.38 (10.94)
25.12 (10.43)
11.00 (4.10)
10.40 (4.75)
20.14 (6.55)
20.73 (7.45)
45.57 (18.79)
43.67 (16.28)
20.39 (8.54)
19.53 (8.23)
15.22 (4.09)
13.06 (3.04)
16.43 (5.56)
18.44 (5.54)
50.26 (22.75)
46.67 (22.15)
22.22 (9.54)
22.33 (9.92)
10.57 (4.24)
8.94 (3.47)
19.26 (4.93)
20.88 (4.54)
M
F
M
F
M
F
M
F
Developmental Behavior Checklist
Total score
Developmental Behavior Checklist
Autism Algorithm
Nisonger Child Behavior Rating Form:
Positive Social Behavior
Autism Screening Questionnaire
67.81 (18.77)
57.57 (15.67)
31.14 (9.22)
26.29 (8.90)
9.29 (3.47)
8.73 (3.67)
21.14 (5.47)
21.07 (6.41)
Comparison
Intervention
Comparison
Intervention
Comparison
Intervention
Measure parenta
12-month assessment
Baseline
Table 4. Unadjusted Means (SDs) of Parental Rating Scales for Child Behavior by Group and Assessment Point
24-month assessment
Outcome of early intervention for autism
relatively large difference between the groups ( J.
Cohen, 1988, considers a d of .80 to be the threshold for a large effect).
To explore whether this difference at the
group level was reflected in outcomes for individual children, we applied the criteria outlined by
Jacobson and Truax (1991) to establish thresholds
for both reliable and clinically significant change
for the intervention and comparison groups. The
computation of a reliable change index score can
be used to establish the IQ change beyond which
there is a 95% chance that the observed change
does not result from measurement unreliability
and/or underlying variability in scores. Calculating the reliable change index score requires two
pieces of data: the SD of IQs and the stability of
the IQ measure. We adopted a conservative approach to the process of identifying these values.
Because there were no suitable sources of normative information regarding variance in, and stability of, IQ in very young children with autism,
we used the data from the present sample of children rather than drawing on normative information provided by the Stanford-Binet or Bayley
tests (i.e., the SD for IQ is normally 15). First, we
identified the SD for IQ for our combined sample
of 44 children at baseline. Second, we assessed the
2-year stability of IQ for young children with autism using the correlation between baseline and 2year IQs for the comparison (untreated) group
only. This provided the best available estimate of
typical stability in IQ for young children with autism. Substituting these values in Jacobson and
Truax’s formula (1991, p. 14) indicated a reliable
change index at the standard level of 1.96 equated
to a change of 23.94 IQ points; a child’s IQ after
2 years had to deviate from that obtained at baseline by at least that amount before the change was
considered reliable; IQ change scores for each
child are shown in Figure 1. This reflects the overall group effect, in that more children in the intervention group than the comparison group
showed IQ increases over time. Moreover, it
shows that 6 children in the intervention group
(26%) achieved a reliable improvement over the 2
years of the study. Three of the children (14%) in
the comparison group did the same but 3 (almost
4) children in this group (14% to 19%) also regressed reliably.
Although the use of the reliable change index
improves on the methods for establishing best
outcome used in previous studies by providing a
quantifiable assessment for individual children, it
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Table 5. Unadjusted Means (SDs) of Self-Report Measures of Parental Well-Being by Group and
Assessment Point
Baseline
Measure
12-month assessment
24-month assessment
Intervention
Comparison
Intervention
Comparison
Intervention
Comparison
6.43 (4.29)
6.81 (4.26)
7.24 (4.19)
5.87 (3.19)
7.48 (4.70)
7.88 (4.27)
6.48 (4.08)
5.53 (3.00)
8.52 (2.97)
8.94 (3.62)
8.29 (2.17)
7.60 (2.72)
9.35 (4.21)
8.89 (4.76)
9.76 (4.87)
7.93 (3.67)
10.48 (5.12)
7.87 (4.60)
8.52 (4.72)
7.00 (3.16)
9.13 (4.53)
8.38 (4.08)
8.62 (4.43)
8.13 (4.10)
8.13 (4.12)
5.69 (4.42)
8.71 (3.68)
7.07 (3.61)
8.04 (5.80)
6.56 (5.25)
7.19 (4.26)
5.27 (2.99)
7.09 (4.97)
7.00 (5.34)
6.90 (3.94)
5.93 (3.83)
Stress (QRS-F)a
Mother
Father
HADSb
Anxiety
Mother
Father
Depression
Mother
Father
Positive
Perceptions
(KIPP-PC)c
Mother
Father
127.30 (27.00) 133.10 (19.37) 127.39 (23.79) 133.43 (18.23) 128.00 (19.62) 132.43 (17.94)
120.94 (20.23) 124.73 (19.66) 122.56 (19.70) 131.40 (15.68) 122.81 (22.47) 128.53 (9.70)
Questionnaire on Resources and Stress Friedrich short form. bHospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. cKansas Inventory
of Parental Perceptions Positive Contributions scale.
a
Figure 1. IQ change for children in the intervention and comparison groups. Horizontal bars indicate
change in IQ between baseline and 24-month assessment for each child in the intervention group (left
panel) and comparison group (right panel). Black vertical lines with arrow-points on both panels indicate
the upper and lower bounds for reliable change in IQ calculated according to Jacobson and Truax’s
(1991) criteria. EIOI ⫽ early intensive behavioral intervention.
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is not sufficient to establish the clinical meaning
of outcomes. A child’s IQ might change reliably
without moving his or her score beyond the severely impaired range. Thus, it is useful to identify
an IQ above which one would consider a child to
be more like children from the typical population
than the population of children from which the
sample was drawn. Jacobson and Truax (1991) discussed several criteria for establishing the clinical
significance of outcomes. Their Criterion C is recommended for use when, as in the present case,
it is possible (a) to identify the nonclinical distribution of an outcome variable (e.g., IQ) and (b)
to obtain reasonable information about the distribution of the variable in a clinical population.
Under Criterion C, the IQ indicating clinical
change is halfway between the mean baseline IQ
of the children in the present sample and the typical population mean (100). This IQ is 81.93. After 2 years, 5 of the 6 children in the intervention
group who achieved reliable change also achieved
clinically significant change (i.e., their IQs exceeded 81.93); all 3 children in the comparison group
achieving reliable improvement also achieved
clinically significant change. No other children in
either group achieved a change that was both reliable and clinically significant.
measure. Using rules of thumb suggested by Cohen (1985), we considered differences between reliable change index responders and nonresponders to be worthy of comment if they exceed .50
(medium effect) and .80 (large effect).
These exploratory analyses suggested that
children who responded most positively to behavioral intervention differed from nonresponders at
baseline in the following ways: They had higher
IQ, higher MA, higher Vineland Composite,
Communication and Social Skills scores, lower
Vineland Motor skills scores, more behavior problems reported on the Developmental Behavior
Checklist by both mothers and fathers, more autistic symptoms reported on the Developmental
Behavior Checklist Autism Algorithm by both
mothers and fathers, and fewer hours of intervention in Year 2.
We also considered the baseline data from the
3 children in the comparison group whose IQ increased to a reliable and clinically significant extent over the 2 years of the study. Because they
were very few in number, we were not able to
complete formal statistical comparisons, but a visual inspection of their scores on all measures at
baseline showed no discernable pattern as a potential explanation as to why they showed reliable
improvement.
Exploratory Analysis of Variables Associated
With IQ Change
Discussion
Figure 1 is a striking representation of the impact of early intensive behavioral intervention;
many more children in the intervention than the
comparison group achieved positive outcomes.
This, however, begs the question of what factors
might be related to intervention success. To consider this, we explored descriptive data on reliable
change index-defined responders (the 6 children receiving early intensive behavioral intervention
whose IQ changed positively to a reliable extent)
and nonresponders (the 6 children in the intervention group whose IQs decreased (cf. Sherer &
Schreibman, 2005). Although we are using the
term nonresponders, the data presented in Figure 1
suggest that these 6 children’s IQs dropped less
than might be expected by comparison with the
poorest outcome children in the comparison
group. The relativity of the term should, therefore, be borne in mind. Table 6 shows mean
scores on all continuous variables at baseline for
these two small subgroups of children. Means
were compared by calculating Cohen’s d for each
The data from this 2-year controlled comparison of early intensive behavioral intervention
against treatment as usual within the United Kingdom education system show a positive advantage
for the intervention group. Consistent with other
field effectiveness research in this area, robust
group main effects were found for IQ, MA, Reynell Expressive Language and Language Comprehension, and Vineland Daily Living Skills after 24
months of intervention. Although less robust,
there were also significant changes in Vineland
Motor Skills and Responding to Joint Attention
as measured by the Early Social Communication
Scales. Like H. Cohen et al. (2006), we used ANCOVA methods to explore Group ⫻ Time interactions that would indicate increasing differentiation of performance with continued intervention; and like Cohen et al., we found none.
Although we included a broader range of outcome measures than did previous researchers (H.
Cohen et al., 2006; Howard et al., 2005), the impact of behavioral intervention was almost exclu-
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Table 6. Baseline Means (SDs) and Effect Sizes of Child Measures for Most and Least Positive
Responders in the Intervention Group
Most-positive responders
Baseline scores
Least-positive responders
Mean
SD
65.00
22.50
19.81
6.98
47.67
18.00
11.55
4.82
1.07
0.75
107.17
24.17
21.17
28.67
33.17
12.75
8.66
6.34
3.20
3.54
99.50
16.17
21.17
25.67
36.50
12.28
5.04
3.82
2.50
6.38
0.61
1.13
0.00
1.04
⫺0.65
ASQb
Mothers
Fathers
21.67
22.00
5.28
7.21
21.17
22.67
4.49
3.50
0.04
⫺0.14
DBCc Total
Mothers
Fathers
69.67
73.67
18.24
9.29
51.83
49.80
24.05
24.57
0.84
1.12
DBC ASAd
Mothers
Fathers
28.67
34.00
8.96
8.00
23.83
24.40
10.80
9.89
⫺0.49
⫺1.02
970.08
760.58
342.11
533.53
1009.88
1053.42
113.92
356.97
⫺0.16
⫺0.65
IQ
MA
VABSa
Composite
Communication
Daily living
Social
Motor
Intervention hours
Year 1
Year 2
Mean
SD
Effect size
Vineland Adaptive Behavior. Scales Raw Scores. bAutism Screening. Questionnaire. cDevelopmental Behavior Checklist.
Autism Screening Algorithm.
a
d
sively on children’s cognitive and language abilities and adaptive functioning. Exceptionally, children in the intervention group differentially
showed robust improvements in parental ratings
of positive social behaviors, but there was no evidence of a similar change in parents’ reports of
children’s behavior problems or ratings of their
autistic behaviors. In addition, there were less
marked improvements in joint attention. Sallows
and Graupner (2005), using domain scores from
the ADI-R, also showed reductions in autism
symptoms relating to social and communication
deficits but no change in ritualistic behaviors.
However, it is not clear whether these scores
would have changed without intensive intervention as there was no nonintensive intervention
comparison group.
The absence of a relative reduction in reported problem behaviors following early intensive be432
havioral intervention is somewhat surprising. It
should be remembered, however, that because intervention focuses primarily on educational goals,
detailed functional analysis and function-informed interventions for problem behaviors are
not the most prominent components. Nevertheless, given the known association between behavior problems and severity of cognitive and adaptive functioning, especially language/communication skills (e.g., McClintock, Hall, & Oliver,
2003), positive benefits of early behavioral intervention on child behavior problems might have
been expected. It is possible that the increased
ability of the children in the intervention group
to respond to bids for attention might have led
to the enhancement of their parents’ positive perceptions of their prosocial behavior. Given the developmental role of these pivotal skills in facilitating language and cognitive development (Mun-
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Outcome of early intervention for autism
dy, 1995; Mundy & Crowson, 1997; Mundy &
Neal, 1997), this is an important direction for future research.
The present study also extended earlier research by including a detailed analysis of parental
outcomes and the first data on fathers. As expected on the basis of previous cross-sectional research
(Hastings & Johnson, 2001), the benefits to children of early intensive behavioral intervention did
not appear to be at a cost to parents. There was
no evidence of differentially increased stress or additional mental health problems in the intervention group mothers or fathers, although the latter
reported more symptoms of depression over the
course of the study. These fathers, however, had
fewer symptoms at baseline compared with those
in the comparison group, so the result may, in
part at least, be an artifact of a strong regression
to the mean effect after 12 and 24 months. These
findings are important because difficulties in parental adjustment would reasonably be considered
as a contraindication for a home-based behavioral
intervention that requires the daily involvement
of the family.
Overall, the effect size for the impact of the
intervention on the children participating was
substantial and clinically meaningful at the group
level (Cohen’s d approaching .80 for IQ after 2
years). Although not reported by H. Cohen et al.
(2006), the effect size for IQ in that study closest
in design to our own was slightly higher than that
obtained in the present research (calculated from
data presented in Cohen et al. as roughly .90).
Thus, our findings are comparable, despite the interventions being delivered over a shorter period
of time and with fewer intervention hours. In earlier studies, the impact of intervention at the level
of individual participants was rarely quantified; instead, researchers tended to report the number of
children scoring within the normal range on standardized measures. In the present study, we extend knowledge by using Jacobson and Truax’s
(1991) reliable change index statistic as a precise
criterion for ‘‘best outcome.’’ This revealed that
26% of children receiving early intensive behavioral intervention achieved IQ change that was
statistically reliable, and none showed a correspondingly reliable regression in IQ. In the comparison group, 14% improved reliably but, unfortunately, a further 14% regressed reliably.
The reliable change statistic also provides a
principled criterion for identifying variables that
are common to the children who benefit most
from early intensive behavioral intervention. Exploratory analysis of reliable change index-defined
most- and least-positive responders identified correlates of change also identified in previous studies (e.g., H. Cohen et al., 2006; Sallows & Graupner, 2005). These included differences on higher
baseline intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior skills (including the total score, communication, and social skills) among the positive responding group. Differences not previously identified were also observed. In addition to poorer
motor skills, the most positive responders had
more behavior problems and more severe symptoms of autism at baseline. This seemingly paradoxical relation could perhaps have arisen if the
measures we used were more sensitive to behavior
in those children exhibiting less severe developmental delay. There are no obvious explanations
for the positive reliable change in IQs observed
for 3 children in the comparison group whose IQs
improved to a reliable extent over 2 years.
The present results indicate that behavioral
intervention can be effective for young children
with autism in the United Kingdom preschool education context, a system unlike the United States whose administrators and educators are not
familiar with early intensive behavioral intervention and, in some ways, are institutionally unsupportive of it. For example, parents in the United
States benefit from Public Laws 94-142 (1975) and
99-457 (1986), which established a right to early
intervention services for children from birth to
age 3 (the Handicapped Infants and Toddlers Program: Part H). The United Kingdom has no such
legislation, and many of its education authorities,
during the time of the research, routinely opposed
parental attempts to access early intensive behavioral intervention through public provision ( Johnson & Hastings, 2002). For these reasons, it was
not possible to exert a high degree of control of
many practical aspects of the delivery of the intervention. For example, tutors delivering homebased services were not employed by the researchers but by education authorities or the children’s
families. Staff turnover was common and replacement tutors often difficult to obtain and slow to
train. Thus, although an intervention group target
intensity of 40 hours per week of input for 2 years
was set, positive results were achieved with an average of only 25.6 hours per week. Nevertheless,
as required for a convincing demonstration of the
field effectiveness, the expected positive outcomes
were achieved despite these difficulties.
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Like most applied research in early intensive
behavioral Intervention, the present study had a
number of limitations. First, because it was not a
randomized control trial, the few potentially relevant differences detected between groups at baseline (such as CA at treatment onset) had to be
controlled statistically, not experimentally. It is,
therefore, possible that, although we took the
most rigorous steps possible in a study of this kind
to manage pre-existing group differences, some remained unobserved. Parenthetically, unobserved
differences between groups prior to intervention
may also occur under conditions of randomization with samples of the size typically used in early intervention research (Drew et al., 2002). In any
case, it would have been very difficult to execute
a randomized control trial in the present case, because the independent variable is an extended educational intervention that cannot be delivered
‘‘blind’’ and that has already amassed a considerable body of research attesting to its utility. Given
the difficulties in finding an equally credible placebo treatment, it might reasonably be expected
that many parents whose children are randomly
assigned to a control group would remove them
from the study and of these, a percentage would
seek the intervention elsewhere (Lord, Wagner et
al., 2005). Under these circumstances, intention to
treat analyses could be misleading. Perhaps for
these reasons, recently published studies in this
area (e.g., H. Cohen et al., 2006; Howard et al.,
2005) have eschewed randomization.
Procedurally, randomized control trials typically include a precise intervention, often described in a manual; narrow participant selection
criteria and blind assessment. Manualized treatment was not a feature of the present study in
part because we chose to adopt broad inclusion
criteria. It would have been impractical to produce
a detailed manual dealing with all possible exigencies but, additionally, the researchers were not in
a position to determine the course of therapy for
all children in the intervention group who, as noted, received services from a range of providers.
Nevertheless, all interventions were supervised by
experienced clinicians with detailed knowledge of
behavioral programming, and we are confident of
the quality of program management. In fact, practical problems of treatment fidelity, primarily the
result of tutor shortages, were far more significant
than those of treatment coherence. Regarding potential examiner bias, the assessor was independent of the intervention teams and formally
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B. Remington et al.
‘‘blind,’’ but, again for practical reasons, assessment took place in the children’s homes, and in
some cases physical or behavioral cues may have
signaled the treatment they were receiving. We
suspect that it is difficult to control for cues of
this kind in any study where there is widespread
professional knowledge of the nature of the intervention.
The issue of sample size restriction in the
present study also requires consideration. Although we were able to recruit a sample of a size
similar to that reported in other early intensive
behavioral intervention evaluation research, there
is a general problem of statistical power in studies
of this kind. Here, two issues are particularly worthy of further comment. First, we found main effect differences on key child outcomes but no significant interaction terms in the 2 ⫻ 2 ANCOVA
models. This finding could mean, as H. Cohen et
al. (2006) concluded, that the effects of the intervention were established by 12 months. We cannot, however, reliably draw such a conclusion: It
is possible that change over the second 12 months
was less marked but that in a larger sample we
might have seen the advantage for the intervention group continuing to increase. More research
addressing this question is needed. A second issue
is that we found very little evidence of negative
effects of early intensive behavioral intervention
involvement on parental well-being, but in a larger sample such effects may have been observed.
Although this possibility cannot be eliminated, it
is important to consider that the present sample
would have been sufficient to show significant or
marginal effects that would clearly have become
significant with more power. It is also salient that
our findings concur with the results of all existing
studies in which investigators addressed this question using various designs; none show evidence of
a negative effect on family members’ adjustment.
The sample-size restriction also allowed only
exploratory effect size analyses of differences between those children in the intervention group
who responded most positively and those who regressed. However, this method has some potential
for application in other outcome studies and may
contribute to the process whereby intervention
may be focused on children and their families
whose characteristics suggest may maximally benefit from intervention.
In conclusion, the present study indicates that
intervention for childhood autism based on applied behavior analysis and delivered intensively
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Outcome of early intervention for autism
at home during the preschool period can bring
about significant changes in children’s functioning without a negative impact on other family
members, even when delivered in circumstances
that for practical reasons do not permit its optimum implementation. Questions remain, however, regarding both the factors that best predict
the effectiveness of intervention and the longterm impact of the effects reported. Although parents, educators, and policy makers are likely to ask
whether early intensive behavioral intervention
‘‘works’’ or ‘‘does not work,’’ it may be more fruitful to pose, instead, smaller but potentially more
answerable questions regarding the selection of
children for intensive intervention: the identification and evaluation of effective curricula and
teaching methods, and the most effective forms
of maintenance programs for children at the end
of a fixed period of early intervention.
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This outcome study was funded by a grant from
the Health Foundation, UK (http://www.health.
org.uk/). The authors are most grateful for their
generous support of the project. A consortium of
11 Local Education Authorities in the South of
England including Southampton, Hampshire,
East Sussex, Maidenhead and Windsor, Poole,
Brighton and Hove, Wokingham, Wiltshire, and
Bournemouth) funded the University of Southampton’s intervention services for 13 children in
the intervention group. The remaining 10 children in that group received services from PEACH,
the London Early Autism Program, and the UK–
Young Autism Progamme. The authors acknowledge the collaborative support of all these agencies, whether financial and practical, without
which the study reported here would not have
been practicable. Any opinions expressed herein
are those of the authors and are not necessarily
endorsed by the research sponsors or collabora-
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tors. Francesca degli Espinosa was the senior supervisor and Erik Jahr served as the external consultant for the University of Southampton intervention. The authors thank: Ruth Littleton, Sophie Orr, and Penny Piggott who, with Paula
Alsford and Monika Lemaic, held supervisory
posts on the University of Southampton team;
Corinna Grindle assisted with reliability analyses;
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and Catherine Carr provided outstanding administrative and logistical support to the team. Requests for reprints should be sent to Bob Remington, Centre for Behavioural Research Analysis
and intervention in Developmental Disabilities
(BRAIDD), School of Psychology, University of
Southampton, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK.
E-mail: [email protected]
䉷 American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities